This weekend it is starry at Solvalla north of Stockholm. Both on and off the trotting track where the Elite Race, one of the world’s largest trotting races, is decided on Sunday. Also on Saturday, prestigious competitions are arranged with international horses and riders on site.
One that most people probably did not expect to show up was Nikola Jokic. The 27-year-old basketball player who plays for the Denver Nuggets in the NBA and who has been praised as the North American league’s most valuable player two years in a row.
“My dream is to move back to Serbia and become a trotting coach after my basketball career. My country is unfortunately the worst in Europe on trotting and there are maybe 150 starting horses and it is very complicated to start abroad. But it’s still great fun “, said Nikola Jokic at Solvalla, writes trotting journalist Peter Andersson, who works for ATG and TV4, on Twitter.
TV pictures show that the Serb, in a yellow driver’s jacket sitting in the sulky, helped the Italian trotting trainer Alessandro Gocciadoro warm up the horse Vitruvio before the third trial heat in the Sweden Cup. Gocciodoro then drove Vitruvio to a fifth place in the race won by Usain Töll, driven by Swedish driver Christoffer Eriksson.
One month ago, Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets were knocked out of the NBA Finals by the Golden State Warriors in the quarterfinals.